[Ads-l] "a red mike" USN/USNA slang

[Jonathan Lighter]

ca1909 in Mame Warren & Marion Warren _Everybody Works but John Paul
Jones_  (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1981) 109: The very few [naval]
cadets who take no part in the hops and other social events are branded
"red [sic] Mikes."

1906 Chauncey M'Govern _Sarjint Larry an' Frinds_  (Manila: Escolta Press)
[glossary] : RED MIKE - Canned salmon.

1920 [U.S. Artillery] _Hicoxy's Army_  [pvtly. ptd.] 33 [ref. to 1918]:
When we weren't picking rusty shell splinters out of our portion of Red
Mike or Monkey Meat, we were continuing to enjoy life.

I don't see the regimental history _Hicoxy's Army_ in WorldCat, but NYPL
had the copy I used.

JL

On Wed, Aug 21, 2019 at 10:14 AM Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu> wrote:

> Not in OED. (HDAS not available for R). Green's Slang online gives 1 (US
> milit.) canned salmon 1906; 2 corned beef 1935.
>
> Whether related to the above or not, three other uses of the collocation
> follow.
>
> a) June 18, 1922 Anaconda [Montana] Standard, p 15? col. 3 "Eight Montana
> Boys Graduate...Annapolis..."
> "Pete," it is learned, now looks on the fair sex with toleration. "As a
> 'Red Mike'"--apparently the navy name for a woman-hater--"Pete was always a
> loud claimant for first honors in the society," says the class Boswell,
> "until he reached the Pall [Pali, Bali?] He tumbled there for a little
> Hawaiian maiden....he has softened to the fair sex ever since."
>
> b) July 26, 1936 Times-Picayune p 75 col. 1"Ensigns mustn't Marry"
> Her smile was calculated to rock even a Red Mike like Bill.
>
> c) In a 1940 US Naval Academy yearbook, certain midshipmen are describes
> as examples of a "red mike," someone apparently not interested in women.[1]
>
> [1] many searchable instances in:
> https://archive.org/details/luckybag1940unse
>
> Stephen Goranson
> http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/
>
>
> [https://archive.org/services/img/luckybag1940unse]<
> https://archive.org/details/luckybag1940unse>
> Lucky Bag : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive<
> https://archive.org/details/luckybag1940unse>
> EMBED (for wordpress.com hosted blogs and archive.org item <description>
> tags)
> archive.org
>
>
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